Why my Cocker stopped eating her food (and what 14 days of a different food fixed).
Hattie left half her bowl every day for eight months. The vet said the kibble was fine. So I stopped asking the vet.
I switched our six-year-old Cocker onto a 14-day trial of freeze-dried raw food from a small Norfolk company called James & Ella. Ten days in, her bowl was empty before I'd put her water down.
Six things changed, in this order. If you've watched your dog go off her food and quietly assumed it was age, you'll recognise yourself in at least three of them.
1.Her bowl had been half-empty for eight months. I just hadn't called it that.
Three premium kibbles in two years. Royal Canin Cocker Adult, then a grain-free one from the big Pets at Home in Wymondham, then back to Royal Canin because the vet had said. Each one worked for ten days. Then back to the half-eaten bowl.
Six. Six and the bag still had a Labrador in a meadow on the front, and she didn't want it.
When a dog leaves her food, the food is the variable. Not the dog.
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2.The scratching that we kept blaming on the carpet.
Around month three of the half-empty bowl, Hattie was scratching. Not a casual scratch. The kind that runs two minutes and ends with her staring at her own paw. We changed the laundry detergent. We bought a new bed. We rotated the rugs. (You will recognise this list.)
Then I read it on a forum for working Cockers, in a thread someone had linked from Mumsnet of all places. Kibble pellets are cooked twice. Once into a paste, once into a pellet. Most of what you're paying for is gone before the bag is sealed.
Ten days after we switched her food, she stopped scratching. The vet had been telling us she was fine. By 'she' he meant her bloods.
Made in Norfolk · In-house canine nutritionists · No freezer needed
3.The garden didn't smell like a garden anymore.
This is the bit I nearly cut. Every dog owner I've ever known has had this conversation, so.
Hattie's stools, on her old kibble, had got progressively softer for about a year. The vet's word for that was 'normal variation.' The neighbour's word was a glance over the fence.
By day nine of the trial: smaller, firmer, less smell, less of them. The reviewer Eilidh had it right. No sloppy poos, no full anal glands.
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4.What 'premium kibble' actually is, when you read the second paragraph of the bag.
On a quiet Saturday I read the back of the kibble bag, ingredient by ingredient.
1. Meat
2. Meat meal
3. A grain
4. A 'derivative'
By the seventh I had stopped reading and started Googling.
Kibble is meat heated, extruded, dried, sprayed with palatant, heated again. Freeze-drying is the opposite. Water removed gently at low temperature. Nothing added.
James & Ella's beef recipe: 80% grass-fed beef (5% liver, 5% heart). The other 20% is sweet potato, carrot, peas, salmon, apple, pumpkin, cranberry, blackberry. That is the whole bag.
When I poured the first scoop into Hattie's bowl, she was sitting before the bowl hit the counter.
Soft, crumbly texture · Pour like kibble · No prep, no freezer
5.The reason I trusted this small Norfolk company more than the big bag in the supermarket.
James Middleton runs James & Ella from a kitchen in Norfolk. (Yes, that family. But he doesn't lead with it, so I won't either.)
His first dog as an adult was a black cocker spaniel called Ella. She was a registered therapy dog. He has said, in print and on stage, that she is a large part of why he is still here. When she died in 2023 he wrote a memoir about her, Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, and named the company after her.
He started cooking raw food for his own dogs the week he read what was in the kibble he'd been buying. Friends asked for some for theirs. The Norfolk kitchen and the in-house canine nutritionists came after.
That is who is making the food in Hattie's bowl. Not a marketing department.
A small story. But the small stories tell you who to trust with the meal.
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I cannot believe the difference in his behaviour. His mood has changed, his skin, his coat, his teeth. Every part of him is brighter. Wish I'd done it a year ago.
Joe, dad to Herbie · verified Trustpilot review6.Why a 14-day trial bag is the cheapest test you can run on your dog's life.
What the trial actually is:
· £40 including delivery
· 14 days of food, calculator-portioned to your dog's weight
· Rolls into a 20% off monthly subscription
· Pause, change or cancel from your account in two clicks
· No minimum term
That is the whole offer. I read the small print three times. There isn't any.
Hattie ate it. We've been on the subscription for four months. The Royal Canin bag, the half-eaten one, has been in the bin since week two.
The cheapest test in your dog's life is the one you spend forty pounds on. The most expensive is the one you keep delaying.
Subscription is 20% off · Pause, change, or cancel anytime
What changed when we switched the bowl.
On James & Ella freeze-dried raw
After 14 days
- Bowl empty before I'd filled the water dish
- Scratching stopped within ten days
- Smaller, firmer stools, less smell, less of them
- Coat shiny enough that strangers commented in the park
- A subscription I haven't touched in four months
On premium kibble
For eight months
- Half-empty bowl by lunchtime, every day
- Scratching at 4am, three different beds, no change
- Soft stools the vet called 'normal variation'
- Dull coat my dog walker stopped commenting on
- Eight months of telling myself it was the season
"She used to walk past the bowl. Now she sits in front of it before I've taken the lid off the bag. That was the first sign I'd been wrong for a year."Eleanor, mum to Hattie
What Cocker, rescue and Cockapoo owners actually said.
She wouldn't eat anything for years
Having never found a food my little fussy Cockapoo will eat, I have finally found one she goes mad for. She can't wait for meal times and doesn't leave a scrap.
Scratching stopped, coat is shiny
She's maintained a really good weight and her bowel movements are way more regular. Her scratching has completely stopped, her skin is way healthier, and her coat is so shiny.
Got my rescue eating, finally
I am so pleased about this. To finally get Paddy to eat raw food, and to have him enjoy his food, is brilliant. He's a Romanian rescue and we'd tried everything.
Behaviour, mood, skin, coat, teeth
I cannot believe the difference in his behaviour. His mood has changed, his skin, his coat, his teeth. Every part of him is brighter. Wish I'd done it a year ago.
I am not going back to the half-empty bowl.
Hattie is six. She has, if I'm honest, seven or eight good years left. Her bowl, for the first time in a year, is empty by lunchtime.
If your dog is leaving her food, scratching at 4am, or quietly running on dimmer than she should, try the trial. £40, fourteen days. If she doesn't eat it, you've spent less than the bag of kibble you'd be replacing. If she does, you'll know in ten days.
The Royal Canin bag with the Labrador on it is in the bin.
Common questions
Is freeze-dried raw food actually raw? Isn't it risky for my dog (or me) to handle?
Yes, the meat and organs are raw, but the freeze-drying process gently evaporates the moisture without heat, which removes the conditions bacteria need to grow. It's shelf-stable at room temperature. Standard food-handling hygiene (wash your hands after, the way you would after raw meat) is all you need.
How is this different from frozen raw (Bella & Duke, ProDog, etc)?
Frozen raw is the same idea, meat, organs, vegetables, but it sits in your freezer and needs to thaw before each meal. Freeze-dried raw gives you the same nutritional profile in a bag of light, crumbly food you scoop and pour like kibble. No freezer drawer, no thaw, no contamination paranoia, and it travels.
What does the grass-fed beef recipe contain?
80% beef (including 5% liver and 5% heart for iron, taurine and omega fats), with 20% from sweet potato, carrot, peas, salmon, apple, pumpkin, cranberry and blackberry. No grain, no gluten, no preservatives. Made in Norfolk by James & Ella's in-house canine nutritionists.
How much will the trial cost for my dog?
The trial bag is £40 including delivery and contains exactly fourteen days of food, calculated by your dog's age and weight on the site. After the trial, the rolling subscription is 20% off and you can pause, change or cancel from your account in two clicks. There is no minimum term.
How do I switch my dog over without upsetting her stomach?
Replace 25% of her current food with the freeze-dried for the first two days, then 50%, then 75%, then 100%. The full transition takes 7 to 10 days. You don't need to soak it in water, but you can if your dog prefers a softer texture.
Will my dog actually like it? She's fussy.
We can't promise. What we can say is that the most consistent line in the brand's reviews is 'my fussy dog finally ate her food.' Freeze-drying preserves the natural smell of the meat, which is what kibble, heated and processed, loses. The bowl-empty-before-I-filled-the-water moment happens for most fussy eaters in the first three days.
The 14-day trial
Hattie's bowl, fourteen days from now.
Calculator-portioned to your dog. £40, delivered. The subscription that follows is 20% off and you cancel from your account in two clicks. No minimum term, no card games.
Made in Norfolk by James Middleton's in-house canine nutritionists. 4.9 stars across 2,400+ Trustpilot reviews. If she doesn't eat it, you've spent less than the kibble bag you'd be replacing.
Start the 14-day trial →14-day trial bag · 20% off subscription · Cancel anytime · UK-made, Norfolk